migraine

Older women have a higher risk of stroke than men and should strive to reduce that risk, say the first guidelines aimed specifically at preventing stroke in women. Women share many of the same risk factors for stroke with men, but their chances of having a stroke can be increased by hormones, pregnancy and childbirth, said¬†Cheryl Bushnell, M.D., associate professor of neurology at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., who led the team of experts who developed the …

¬†News, discoveries and fun … 1. A novelist/farmer gives “chick lit” a whole new meaning. (Learn more at¬†CBS) (hat tip to Hilarie Grey) 2. It’s possible to score a night at the Waldorf-Astoria for $15.75. (Learn more at AARP) 3.¬†New surgical superglue can patch a hole in a¬†beating heart. (Learn more at¬†NPR) 4.¬†Some people who get¬†migraines¬†spell relief p-l-a-c-e-b-o. (Learn more at¬†AARP) 5. The NBA will end merger payments to the owners of a defunct ABA team – at $800 million.¬†(Learn …

It’s called the placebo effect – the surprising power of the brain to affect the body when we take a pill we think is medication, even though it isn’t. It’s been found to influence a number of conditions, including depression and irritable bowel syndrome, as Smithsonian magazine noted, but the most recent research concerns the pain of chronic migraines – those severe pounding headaches often accompanied by nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light. In the study, published in Science Translational …

If you suffer from migraines, how worried should you be about a recent study that suggests the painful disorder may permanently change¬†brain structure? For this study, published online Wednesday in the journal Neurology, researchers¬†at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark analyzed 19 different studies and found that people who suffer from migraines have an increased risk of brain lesions – tiny scars on the brain – as well as more infarct-like abnormalities and changes in brain volume. The results showed …

Debilitating migraines can stop just about anyone in their tracks, even Basic Instinct star Sharon Stone. The glamorous 55-year-old actress, in Milan for fashion week and to chair an AIDS fund-raising gala, was admitted to a hospital with a migraine last Friday after attending a fashion show, Reuters reported. By Saturday, however, she had recovered and was back in fine form – thanks to a slinky black halter dress the New York Times described as “nothing more than a bra …